Written by: Yureka Adhikari - 29049, Grade V
Posted on: 02 March, 2022
Once there was a star called Celeste, everyone knew her as a perfect star, no imperfections, she had everything planned out. Every word she spoke grew a new star. No, she did not have the magic to do that but all her words felt like seeing a fantasy land. She was so perfectly planned out and she understood everything so well that the sentence, I do not know, was so unheard of from her. Well, that was until let me explain.
She was 10, one day, she was in the garden like normal, she had just received a diary and had taken it and a pen outside. She decided that she would write a story instead of just journaling. She wanted to write a character who had magic and could control what she wanted to, whether it was nature, weather or simply a pencil she could! She wrote and realized that no matter what she could control at the end of the day she couldn’t be perfect. What Celeste was writing, was what she thought would make her pitch-perfect but no matter what she couldn’t fulfil everything. “What am I missing? She can control everything. Why does her smiling seem so fake! Isn’t this all anyone needs to be perfect and isn’t being perfect what makes you happy?” Celeste thought while being confused and feeling like she had been lying to herself for a decade of her life. Confused and curious about why she felt like this character was so incomplete she went to her little library in her room and picked up a book she hadn’t read before. After finishing reading she asked herself “ Why do I like so many of these imperfect characters who had problems with things I can do so easily. I mean if I hate the character that I wrote about, is so perfect her life means controlling everything and giving life to things or the fact she always puts others before her. Then, why is she so incomplete? But these characters who can’t even figure out how to properly take care of a flower seems so sweet and amazing! What is my character missing that these characters have? I don’t get it!”, she asked herself. Just then her mother came in, saying her aunt and cousin had come to meet them. Celeste kept her books and notebooks inside her shelf. Excited, she put everything inside and ran down the stairs. “Hi, Alessia! Wanna come upstairs?” Asked Celeste. “Sure!” Alessia responded. Alessia is her cousin sister. The two started talking since Alessia frequently wrote stories and was four years older than her. Celeste asked “I’ve been trying to write a story but my main character doesn’t seem complete or real I read this book where the characters were less perfect than my main character but I liked them more. Can you help me?” Celesta read her story to Alessia. Then, Alessia responded “ Your character is so happy and doll-like from the beginning and she is so perfect she has no problems. Characters and people aren’t pitch-perfect. No! They feel emotions and are sometimes so confused they don’t understand a thing or make mistakes. Mistakes happen and that’s being a person so sure your character can control the world but it doesn’t feel like a person because it just smiles and never has a down point. It’s never sad or basically to feel real, it should be able to have a point where the reader understands the character and just a smiling pitch-perfect character is no human instead of a plastic doll.” “So you are saying being perfect doesn’t mean being constantly happy or knowing everything?” She asked, wondering if she had lived her life not understanding the one thing she tried to be. “While that’s a bit of it the world isn’t just a fairytale you're in a roller coaster sometimes high up in the air where nothing has to be real and sometimes on land where imperfections lay down. To reach the top of the world you have to go up and then come down again,” replied Alessia. “This doesn’t mean you have to lie about being sad or not knowing something you just need to accept sometimes the world is just not always happy roses everywhere and that’s why writing and art, in general, exists to create a world that’s not real and can be anything but the characters should feel real to make people feel as though that fantasy world exists.” Celeste, understood what her cousin sister had said, asked, “So if I don’t understand something I don’t have to do it all on my own and can ask for help?” Alessia replied “Absolutely, I don’t know and I need help are sentences that exist for a reason. That doesn’t mean you ask for the simplest of things but if the bag is too heavy two people are better than one!” Since then the perfect star Celeste has brightened up the night sky with all the other billions of stars and has carried the gorgeous moon to make the others’ night normally which used as a time when one is sad, bright and clear till the sun would rise the next day to bring hope.
